


Crash Landing

by SorchaCahill



Series: Awakenings [3]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Poe just wants to get back to the Resistance, Teedo's life sucks, oblique mention of torture, stranded on a backwater planet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 19:18:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6127369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SorchaCahill/pseuds/SorchaCahill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was some rescue. He managed to escape the First Order with the help of a most unlikely ally only to find himself stranded on Jakku with no weapons, no food, no money, and no idea where he was. It was pure luck he found a downed AT-AT to take shelter in. </p><p>You could also call this Poe and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crash Landing

It was almost dark when Poe opened his eyes. If he bothered to think about it he would have been more than a little surprised that he  _ had _ woken up. His memory was fuzzy and his head was pounding as if he had drank too much Johrian whiskey but he was pretty sure he had a concussion from when the TIE fighter he’d been flying had crashed into the desert. He had a vague memory of ejecting from the cockpit but not much more than that. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was forgetting something. 

The sand beneath him was still warm from the day’s heat but he knew that wouldn't last long. While Jakku was blistering hot during the day, sand wasn't the best at trapping heat in and soon any warmth left by the sun would disappear. He needed to get moving. The big question was, however,  _ could _ he get moving. 

Lying there in the sand he took careful inventory. Besides the pounding in his head he didn't think he had broken any bones from when he had landed and the fact that he could wiggle his fingers and toes boded well for him. His side ached something fierce and he prayed that the ribs were just bruised. There was no telling how far he was from the nearest settlement and he didn't fancy having to walk for miles with a broken rib or three. 

He cautiously sat up and took it as a good sign when he didn't feel any bones shift in his side. Not broken then, but they ached like a rotten tooth. Looking around he could see no sign of the TIE fighter, no wreckage, no proof that it had even existed. Could he have been thrown that far? Granted he hadn't been too concerned about how he landed, just that he  _ did _ land, and preferably in one piece. It would have been preferable however to have ended up somewhere near the fighter, it had to have had some sort of emergency…

Memory of his capture and subsequent desperate escape provided by the most unlikely of people slammed back into him. 

Where the hell was Finn?

Poe didn't want to think that the Stormtrooper that had risked everything to help him escape had died. The kid had just been trying to do the right thing, he had said so himself. It would be a cruel trick of fate for him to have broken through the conditioning the First Order put him through only to die hours later. 

Even though he knew it was probably pointless, Poe called out into the darkness, willing the darkness to answer back. Nothing. Not even the wind. 

Standing up, he tried to get his bearings. In the mad flight down he had tried to get an idea of where they were crashing but there was little on Jakku but sand and other wrecked spacecraft and fighters that had crashed here over thirty years ago. If he was lucky he had crashed close to one of the outposts that sold whatever valuables scavengers were able to find on those defunct ships, if he wasn't…. If he wasn't he’d have to cross that bridge if,  _ when, _ he came to it and he had to believe that bridge wouldn't come. It wouldn't do for the Resistance’s best pilot to die on this backwater planet. 

A slight breeze pushed over the dune in front of him, and with it came the faint smell of smoke. Not smoke from a campfire like the one he had sat across from Lor San Tekka’s just a few days ago. No, this was the greasy smell of smoke from burning wreckage. He carefully climbed to the top of the dune, slipping several times on the soft sand before he finally made it to the top. Squinting into the distance, he tried to locate the source of the smoke but with the sun now down and no moon to brighten the night sky, it was difficult to see anything clearly for more than fifty feet in front of him. Poe stifled the anxiety that churned his stomach as he continued to scan the horizon. Dammit, he wasn't going to die on this rock. If he was going to die it was going to be in the cockpit. 

He had almost given up hope of finding the source of the smoke when he thought he saw a flicker of light in the distance. Whether it was real or just the product of his imagination he didn't care. It gave him a flight path and he was going to take it no matter how slim the chances were that it was going to lead him anywhere. 

***

It was hard to know just how long he’d been walking. When the First Order had captured him they had taken everything but his clothes and there hadn’t been time during the escape to even think about recovering them. He shoved the memory of his capture and interrogation into the back of his mind. It was a distraction that he couldn’t afford right now. Right now he needed to focus on survival, focus on putting one foot in front of the other.

The smell of smoke was getting stronger and slowly the shape of the desert was changing, where the soft dunes started to flatten out and sharp angles of crashed ships began to rise up from the sands. The closer he got the more he worried that the TIE fighter had crashed into the settlement, killing any who lived there. He hoped that wasn’t the case, but if it wasn’t, why was there smoke, what was burning?

These questions and more kept him motivated to keep putting one foot in front of the other. There was the thought that maybe the First Order had hit the settlement in their search for him and Finn and as much as he hoped it wasn’t the case, it was childish to think that they would abandon the search for BB-8. He could only hope that his little friend was smart enough and lucky enough to have escaped their clutches.

Exhaustion was starting to weigh in on him. He been interrogated for what seemed like hours and Kylo Ren and his lackeys hadn’t allowed much time for breaks. The memory of what happened tried to worm it’s way forward again, and again he shoved it down but this time it was more resistant, more unwilling to obey his commands. It was like having Kylo Ren trying to get in his head again. 

Poe swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. Every Resistance fighter knew the risks, knew what could happen if they were captured and interrogated, but nothing could prepare anyone for what he had gone through. He just prayed that no one else would have to go through what he did. He knew that Kylo Ren was the General’s son, or had been before he turned to the Dark side. He knew that she held out hope that there was still some good in him, but there had been nothing good that had happened in that room. Nothing until Finn had rescued him.

“Get it together, Dameron,” he ordered himself. 

He was so caught up in his spiral he didn’t see the fallen AT-AT Walker until he nearly ran into it. Even in the dark, after years of neglect, it was still imposing, a giant behemoth that towered over him. It was a testament as to how distracted he’d been that he hadn’t seen it. He couldn’t imagine what it had been like to face it on the battlefield. He’d heard stories from the older Resistance fighters, about how the giant behemoths held helped to crush the Rebel base on Hoth. A favorite among them was the story about how Luke Skywalker and his squadron had taken down two walkers by using the cables on their fighters and hogtied the legs, causing the thing to crash into the frozen tundra of Hoth. It was those stories he grew up and it was not with a little bit of excitement that he entered the fallen Walker. 

Someone had busted out one of the windows, turning the cockpit into a hut of sorts, and had hung a heavy cloth over the opening. It was darker inside but it was also warmer, the shell of the AT-AT holding in the heat it had captured during the day. His foot caught on something, sending him stumbling forward. In the dark he wasn’t able to gauge his surroundings and was unable to prevent his head catching on the corner of a shelf. The last he remembered was a bright flash of pain before the darkness took him over again.

***

The next time he woke he felt something warm on his face. Cracking an eye open he could see dim rays of light filtering through the the cockpit windows. Whoever had inhabited this place before had covered some of them but light still managed to seep through, enough that he could take better stock of his surroundings. 

He carefully pushed himself up to a sitting position, wincing at the pain in his head and gingerly touched his forehead and wasn’t surprised to see blood coating his fingers. The med droids were going to have a field day with him once they got their circuits on him. 

Looking around the cockpit he saw definite signs that someone had very recently been living here. An old Rebel flight helmet sat on a shelf, scarred and worn down after years spent in the desert. Not such a curious thing to find in a scavenger’s den but it was interesting. More interesting was the handmade doll sitting next to it. It looked like someone had cut the fabric from a flight suit, and, like many of the other things stored in the cockpit, it looked old and ratty. Feeling foolish, he picked up the doll running his thumb over the face. It was very faint but he thought he could make out a name beginning with the letter R on what was supposed to be the helmet. Some kid had loved this doll once upon a time but now it sat on a shelf, seemingly forgotten. 

He was about to place the doll back when he noticed the marks on the wall. Hundreds, no thousands of them covering the wall, each mark representing a day. The person living here had been marking the days. Looking around the cockpit he saw no evidence of other people living there, it appeared to be just one person and if that was true, that person had been living here for years, alone. And if he was to guess they had been just a child when they had started making those marks.

Who would leave a child alone on a planet like this? 

Things happened, he knew that, but the thought of a child living here by themselves for years, struggling out an existence, waiting for something (whatever that was) broke his heart. 

Looking down, he saw ridge marks in the sand that had invaded the cockpit. Kneeling down he touched his fingers to the grooves, a small smile lifting the corners of his mouth. Any rational person would say it was highly unlikely that BB-8 had passed through here but in his heart, Poe knew it to be true. And if that was the case he knew had to be close to a settlement. His little droid friend was one of the most determined droids he’d met. If you gave it a mission, BB-8 was single-minded in completing it.

Squinting, he tried to make out more of the interior of the cockpit. There, in the corner, he could see a BB-8 shaped divot, probably where he had powered down for the night. If the droid had powered down, that meant it felt safe enough to do so, which said to Poe that the previous resident was trustworthy. BB-8 could be squirrelly at the best of times and he could only imagine how the droid was doing after the First Order attacked Tuanul. 

Poe set the doll on the table and continued searching the AT-AT cockpit, praying that there was some kind of food left. From the few scavengers he’d met, he knew they hid anything of importance, food being high on that list. Finding a hidey-hole in the gutted AT-AT cockpit would be like trying to a needle in the Death Star; maybe slightly less impossible but still time consuming. He found several compartments but all they held were salvaged parts taken from downed spacecrafts. He recognized a few parts he could use to fix his X-Wing, if he ever made it back to her, but no food.

His search was interrupted when he heard the snuffle of a luggabeast outside. Poe slide up against the wall, snatching up a long pipe. It was possible that whoever was scuffling around outside was the person who lived here, but he doubted it. Anything left vacant for more than a day on Jakku was fair pickings for any scavenger.

A shadow stretched across the floor as the scavenger appeared in the doorway. From its shape it looked like a Teedo. Poe tried to hold in his disgust. Teedos were some of the most unscrupulous creatures he’d ever encountered. If there was one that ever thought about anyone other than themselves, he’d never met them. A sudden thought came to him. If BB-8 had crossed paths with the Teedo, it could mean only bad things. Not only would his droid friend been broken down for parts but they would have lost the map to Luke Skywalker. His gut burned at the thought that he might have failed his mission and failed BB-8. The little guy had been with him since forever and the thought of him lying in a scrap heap somewhere...

The Teedo came through the door, a crude staff in one hand and a bag in the other. Apparently the scavenger thought the AT-AT was ripe for picking which could only mean two things: either it’s former occupant was dead or the Teedo was certain that they wouldn’t be back anytime soon. 

A foul stench filled the cockpit as the Teedo moved further in. Poe’s eyes watered at the smell and he tried not to gag. He was sure that he himself didn’t smell too fresh after being tortured by Kylo Ren and the First Order and then wandering through the desert, but the Teedo smelled like he didn’t even know what water was.

For a scavenger, the Teedo seemed remarkably unaware of his surroundings. Poe stepped away from the wall and pressed the end of the pipe against the back of the Teedo’s head. The Teedo made an undignified squawk and dropped his staff but otherwise didn’t move.

“You picked the wrong AT-AT to scavenge.” Poe said, hoping that the Teedo had at least a rudimentary knowledge of Basic. 

“This no your AT-AT. I know who’s AT-AT this is and you no her. Rey gone, never to return I hope. Thief stole my salvage.”

“If I remember correctly, it’s first come first serve to abandoned craft when it comes to salvage rights, so I guess this is my AT-AT now, Teedo.”

“That bantha poodoo. You no scavenger.”

“You’re the one with the weapon pointed at your head, pal. You wanna push me, go ahead an try. I’ve had a really crappy couple of days and your stench isn’t making it any better.”

The Teedo started screeching in his native tongue and Poe was pretty sure that none of it was very complimentary. Sighing, he pressed the pipe harder against the Teedo’s skull, hoping he would realize it wasn’t a blaster aimed at his head. The Teedo took the hint and went still but continued grumbling under his breath.

“No salvage here anyway. Thief took the good stuff with her. She a bully just like you. Threatened Teedo’s life over a droid.”

“Driod? What droid?” Poe grabbed the Teedo by the back of his neck and slammed him up against the wall. “What droid?” he asked again.

“Some astromech, orange and white. Took it with her when she ran from the Stormtroopers. Took Unkar Plutt’s freighter too. Her and some off-worlder. Unkar Plutt not happy.”

Off-worlder? Poe mind spun. Was it possible that Finn had survived the crash as well? It seemed like it was too much to hope. He hadn’t known the Stormtrooper more than thirty minutes but he was forever in his debt for helping him escape. Poe was certain that if left much longer in the First Order’s clutches he would have died under Kylo Ren’s interrogation. When they had found out that he didn’t have the map to Luke Skywalker his life was pretty much forfeit. Taking a deep breath, Poe steadied himself. It was going to be okay, he thought. BB-8 and the map were safe, somehow with Finn and the mysterious scavenger named Rey. 

He eased off the Teedo, stepping away, thoughts spinning through his head. Would Finn and the scavenger be able to get BB-8 back to the Resistance? Knowing how stubborn the little droid was, he was certain it would happen. Knowing that, there was only one thing now that concerned him. How was  _ he _ going to get back?

The Teedo straightened its duster, grumbling to himself in his native tongue. Poe didn’t understand much but there were a couple of words that stuck out. Stepping forward again, he laid a hand on the Teedo’s shoulder, preventing him from leaving.

“She stole what ship?”

“What it matter to you, human?” the Teedo shot back in Basic. “A ship is a ship.”

“Not all ships are created equal, my reptilian friend. Want to try that again?”

“It was some Corellian class piece of garbage. Don’t know why Unkar Plutt kept it in one piece. He just kept in under a tarp. Been there for years.”

Corellian class piece of garbage? It couldn’t be. Could it?

“Does the piece of garbage have a name?”

“Falcon, or something like it. Names don’t matter for piles of garbage.”

Poe couldn’t help it, he started laughing. The Teedo looked at him like he was going mad, which only made him laugh harder. There was only one Corellian class ship that he knew of that was consistently referred to as a piece of garbage, though from what he’d heard it was the fastest hunk of junk in the galax. He had it from a reliable source that it was true.

“You can laugh, human, but once Unkar Plutt finds that ship, Rey won’t last long. That thief stole the wrong ship from the wrong person. He’s already searching for her. Sent his thugs. He should have let the thief die when she was left here.”

Poe’s laughter died out, the smile that had been growing sliding off his face. His eyes flicked over to the wall with the thousands of scratch marks and then back to the Teedo. Whatever he saw in Poe’s eyes made the Teedo flinch back. He brought the pipe up again, tapping it lightly against the Teedo’s face.

“Here’s what’s going to happen here. You’re going to take me to the nearest settlement with a hyperspace communicator.”

“What make you think I help you, human?”

“As I see it, you have two options here, Teedo. Option A, you take me to the nearest settlement, no fuss. Option B, I make you take me, you loose all your salvage and the luggabeast that’s carrying it. I highly suggest you take option A.”

“How you make me? You just have that pipe.”

“Don’t underestimate a determined man, Teedo. Now, what’s it going to be? Option A or option B?”

For a half second, Poe feared that the Teedo was going to fight him. Despite his talk, Poe knew he was in rough shape. But he wasn’t lying. You shouldn’t underestimate a determined man. Fortunately, like all Teedo, this one had a strong sense of self-preservation and decided it was in his best interest to help him.

“Fine. I take you to Niima Outpost. You humans, think you can rule everything. You come to Jakku, try to take all the best salvage, try to blow us up. R’iia curse you all.”

“Not sure who R’iia is pal, but if it makes you feel any better, I don’t want to be here longer than I have to, so let’s go.”

The Teedo bent down to pick up his staff but Poe was quicker, taking both it and the bag he’d brought in with him. He didn’t know why he did it, and would later question his motives, but at the moment it was more on instinct that he picked up the raggedy doll and put it in the bag along with the old crash helmet. He took one last glance at the wall with the thousand of scratch marks on it before shaking his head and following the Teedo out of the AT-AT.

The quicker he got off Jakku the better. He needed to get back to the Resistance and back in the fight. 


End file.
